Read-only user access for web based auction

ABSTRACT

A networked computer arrangement and method in which a manufacturer or service provider may communicate to a plurality of traders the items, including goods and/or services, which may be available for purchase, the quantities of those available items, and any other conditions to be met for the purchase of the available items. Traders may apply guest bidder profiles or entitlement schema to the available goods lists to produce offerings for a plurality of guest brokers. Only bid-relevant product information is presented to each guest broker as needed in order to protect the offering party&#39;s overall position on the offered good(s). Guest broker profiles or entitlement schema may be based on perspective contractual arrangements between potential brokers, traders, and a manufacturer or service provider. Offerings are presented to the guest brokers, who are restricted from participating in the bidding process.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS (CLAIMING BENEFIT UNDER 35U.S.C. 120)

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/801,613, filed on Mar. 8, 2001 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,475,025, now underallowance, which was related to U.S. application Ser. No. 09/714,726,filed on Nov. 16, 2000, filed by Leland James Wiesehuegel, et al.

FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STATEMENT

This invention was not developed in conjunction with any Federallysponsored contract.

MICROFICHE APPENDIX

Not applicable.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

This application incorporates by reference U.S. patent application Ser.No. 09/801,613, filed on Mar. 8, 2001, and U.S. application Ser. No.09/714,726, filed on Nov. 16, 2000, filed by Leland James Wiesehuegel,et al., in their entireties including drawings and figures.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/801,613, filed on Mar. 8, 2001, now under allowance, which wasrelated to U.S. application Ser. No. 09/714,726, filed on Nov. 16, 2000,filed by Leland James Wiesehuegel, et al.

The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce and moreparticularly to conducting an interactive offer and bid collection overa computer network. The present invention relates especially to accessby guest members to online auctions and offering systems which allow theguest to view offered products and restricts the guests activities suchthat he or she may not actually participate in the bidding process.

2. Description of the Related Art

Prior to the advent of electronic auctioning over computer networks orelectronic commerce, auctions were held in a group of gathered bidderswith an auctioneer. As shown in FIG. 1, an auction (1) is conducted onbehalf of a seller (2) by an auctioneer (4). The auctioneer receives alist of items to be sold and possibly a minimum and/or reserve price forthose items. During the auction, a plurality of bidders (6) place bids(5) under the guidance and control of the auctioneer (4). In some cases,multiple bidders (9) may pool (8) their bids, and the pooled bids (7)are submitted as a single bid with a combined quantity to the auctioneer(4).

The auctioneer enforces the rules of the auction, such as minimum bidprice and quantities, minimum bid incrementing from the previous bid fora new bid, and time limits for placing bids. Auction bidders aretypically qualified as to their ability to complete the purchase shouldtheir bid be the winning bid prior to entering the auction room.

Many online auctioning systems such as “priceline.com” have become verypopular for individuals and businesses to use to take advantage ofauctions at which they cannot be physically present. Such e-commerceauctions or online auctions are usually conducted over a specifiedperiod of time of opening and closing for bids, and are typicallyconducted under one of several well-known sets of rules or models. Thesecommon models include “Dutch” auctions, progressive auctions, “Yankee”auctions, single-bid auction, sealed bid auctions, reserve auctions, andhybrids of these types of auctions.

However, most sales offering and bid systems conducted by manufacturersof goods or service providers are conducted under a different set ofprocedures and processes. Turning to FIG. 2, a typical trader and brokersystem for offering and accepting bids is shown (20). In such abusiness-to-business (“B2B”) offering and bidding process (20), amanufacturer or service provider (21) will notify one or more traders(24) of available products or services, quantities, and minimumacceptable bid values (22). The trader then provides offerings (23′) toone or more brokers (25), to which the brokers may respond with bids(23).

In some cases, bids may be accepted for either partial lots or wholelots of offered products. These offerings (23′) and the correspondingbids (23) are collected by the trader, and the trader (24) makes adecision of which bids to accept. The traders (24) subsequently respondto the manufacturer or service provider (21) with actual orders orpurchases (22).

Although the B2B offering and bid acceptance process may be conductedsimilarly to an auction, it is not an auction in the strict sense inthat the order fulfillment, or bid acceptance, process is conductedusually by the trader at his discretion. For example, under a typicalauction process, the highest qualified bidder may be defined as the bidwinner. However, in a B2B offering and bid collection system, the tradermay favor the second or third highest bid over the highest bid for thefact that the broker placing the second or third highest bid haspreferred business arrangements, such as a longer history of purchasingfrom the trader or a history of larger volume purchases with the trader.

Brokers typically buy on speculation, and sell to end users. Brokers maysell to multiple retailers of products or services, or they mayrepresent a single large retailer of a product or service.

Traders are typically commissioned sales professionals, and thestructure of their commissions may vary depending on the quantities andthe commodities or category of products being sold.

According to industry terminology, “Reseller Master Agreements” usuallygovern what a broker may purchase, which are enforced by the individualtraders. For example, a particular broker may only have rights topurchase given commodities or categories of products within a certaingeographical zone or region as defined by his Reseller Master Agreementwith the manufacturer or service provider.

Further, traders may be restricted to handling specific commodities orcategories of products and also may be restricted to certain localities.For example, a trader may specialize in furniture from a particularmanufacturer, and may not be authorized to handle carpets or othertextiles from the same manufacturer. This trader's expertise infurniture allows him to focus his knowledge and understanding into themarket place for furniture. A trader may also be restricted as to thelocality or geographical region in which his brokers may purchase goods,such as Europe, North America, or even more specific such as aparticular state or city.

Thus, a particular broker may receive offers from multiple traders whorepresent a particular manufacturer or service provider. For example, abroker that represents a chain of computer stores may receive computermemory offers from a first broker, software upgrade offers from a secondbroker, and peripheral offers from yet a third broker, all of whomrepresent the same manufacturer. In response, this broker may bid forproducts or services in different categories, and must submit those bidsto different traders based on the traders' commodities or categories ofproducts that each trader handles.

As such, it is desirable not to present information to the traders orbrokers which is irrelevant to the products or commodities for whichthey are entitled to purchase under their Reseller Master Agreement. Forexample, certain brokers and traders may be associated with geographicalregions which are not allowed to receive certain products or servicesfrom the manufacturer because of regulatory or export controls.Additionally, certain contractual restrictions between the manufacturerand the trader or other traders and other brokers may establishterritorial boundaries regarding products and services handled by thebrokers and traders. Further, even though a broker may be entitled toreceive offers for a particular product or service, it may not bedesirable to indicate to that broker the total quantity available fromthe manufacturer, as having this knowledge may not encourage the brokerto place his highest possible bid for the product or service.

Therefore, the available online auctioning systems are not appropriatein such B2B offering and bid collection systems. First, the availableonline auctioning systems represent a full auction under which certainrules dictate which bids will be automatically accepted so the systemprovides offering of available quantities, bid collection, bid ruleenforcement, bid fulfillment, and bid acceptance functions under therules of the auction. But, as previously discussed, B2B offerings andbid collections are not executed under such strict rules. Further, theavailable online auction systems are particularly adapted to placementof orders by multiples of bidders or pooled bidders, and do not favorthe traditional interaction between traders and brokers. And, mostonline auctioning systems provide information as to last top bid (“bidto beat”) and total quantities of goods available.

As such, the available online auction systems do not allow for therestriction and filtering of information which is conveyed from theoffering party to the offered party to eliminate the presentation ofinformation which is not relevant to the offered party's Reseller MasterAgreement. This may not protect the confidentiality of total quantitiesavailable from the offering party, and may compromise the ability of theoffering party to obtain the best possible bids for the goods offered.

The related application discloses a system and method which provides anonline capability to conduct both auctions and business-to-businesssales offerings. Under this system and method, each potential bidder isassociated with a profile matrix or entitlement schema. The broker'sprofile or bidder's profile indicates which materials from the masterlist of available materials are to be presented to the broker or bidder.This system therefore allows each bidder or broker to access and reviewonly materials from the master list for which they are entitled to bid.

Potential bidders and brokers, however, who have not joined into theauction or offering process, such as those who have not formallyexecuted a Reseller Master Agreement (“RSA”), are not able to viewavailable goods information as a “guest” due to the restrictions of thesystem described in the related application. Therefore, there is a needin the art for these potential bidders to visit the online offeringsystem or auction system to experience the capabilities of the system inhow it functions with limited capabilities as a “guest” user.

In one possible embodiment, a guest bidder may be allowed to view a setof hypothetical information and products for availability. However, thisis less desirable than allowing the user to view actually availableproducts because the set of hypothetical available items may or may notbe relevant to the items which the bidder would like to purchase. Forexample, a hypothetical set of items to be viewed by a potential biddermay include computers and memory. But, the potential bidder may be moreinterested in purchasing printers and hard disk drives. So, to usehypothetical data sets would mean to either create multiple data sets sothat the examples given to the guest bidders are more relevant, or toaccept the short comings of the hypothetical data sets approach.

Another approach to solving this problem of allowing potential biddersto participate or experience the auction functions is the methodprovided by eBay™. eBay allows a potential user to browse any and allavailable items, seeing both the listed bids and posted prices. However,there is no restriction as to the information that can be viewedaccording to the categories, regions, or themes of the offered items,and as such a potential bidder may see any and all of the availableitems. This may be undesirable both from the guest's perspective and theonline offering system operator's perspective.

Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method whichprovides for delivery of authorized or entitled information regardingavailable items for a potential or guest bidder. This system preferablyshould provide the ability to establish a bidder profile whichdetermines which available products are entitled to be viewed by theguest bidder. Then, upon visiting the online offering or auction system,the guest bidder would be allowed to see only product information forwhich he is entitled, and he would be prevented from actually takingpart in the offering or auction process such as placing a bid.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following detailed description when taken in conjunction with thefigures presented herein provide a complete disclosure of the invention.

FIG. 1 discloses the well-known arrangement of sellers, auctioneers, andbidders.

FIG. 2 shows the common business arrangement between manufacturers,service providers, traders, and brokers.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of offerings under the preferred embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows a broker profile matrix including a “read only” parameterfor each “entitled” location and category pair.

FIG. 5 shows a generalized system architecture of the invention.

FIG. 6 sets forth the preferred embodiment of the system of theinvention.

FIG. 7 illustrates the logical flow of the process of broker offerpresentations, normal bid collection, and read-only offer presentations.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In order to address the aforementioned needs in the art, the presentinvention provides a networked computer arrangement and method in whicha manufacture or service provider may communicate to a plurality oftraders the goods or services which may be available, the quantities ofthose available goods, and any other conditions to be met by bidders orbrokers.

Throughout the disclosure given herein and the following claims, theterm “broker” is used to describe a bidding party or bidder, and theterm “trader” is used to describe a party who conducts the process ofpromoting offers to bidding parties. This is nearly analogous to bidderand auctioneer in the context of a traditional auction, respectively,although the offering and bidding process provided by the invention maybe used to conduct business-to-business offers as well as traditionaltypes of auctions.

The system and method allows the traders to apply broker profiles orentitlement schema to those available goods lists to produce offeringsfor a plurality of bidders or brokers. Typically, the broker profiles orentitlement schema are based on the contractual arrangement between thebrokers, the traders, and the manufacturer or service provider.

The system and method presents the prepared offerings to the brokers,who may submit bids in response to the offerings. The system and methodallows the trader to review the collected bids from the broker, and toadvance those bids for acceptance either through another orderfulfillment system, or through manual confirmation of acceptance of thebid.

The system is particularly well-adapted for use over the Internet,intranets, and extranets, by allowing common computer web browsers,network terminals, and wireless web browsers to be used as the offeringand bidding consoles by the traders and brokers, respectively, and byallowing the manufacturer or service provider to produce the lists ofavailable products or services using common web technologies.

Specific offerings of materials or services are characterized by alocation and product category pair of parameters. Brokers are assignedprofiles of one or more location and category parameter pairs for whichthey are entitled to receive offers and on which they are entitled tobid.

The system provides the ability for the trader to retrieve lists ofavailable items and their offering parameters from the manufacturer orservice provider, and to produce offerings for view by their brokers.According to the disclosure of the related patent application, thebrokers may retrieve their offerings from the system and may respondwith independent bids. The independent bids are collected by the systemand made available to the trader for review and subsequent acceptance.

According to the present invention, an enhancement is added to this baseoffering system which allows the potential or guest bidder or broker tohave a read-only profile established for him or her. In this case, theoperation is similar to that of the system and method of the relatedapplication in that the guest bidder receives only information aboutavailable products to which he or she is entitled according to hisprofile matrix, but also all responding and bidding actions aredisabled. As such, he or she may experience the functionality of theonline offering or auction system without being allowed to participatein the bidding process.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present method and system is preferably realized in a plurality ofnetworked computers, including computer network terminals or consoles,networked database application servers, web servers, and a computernetwork. The computer network consoles employed are any suitable devicefor accessing remote application services over a computer network,including, but not limited to, personal computer-based web browsers,wireless web browsers such as web-enabled wireless telephones andpersonal digital assistants (“PDA”), Internet appliances, as well asdedicated computer terminals. The database application serversemployable in the invention may be any of a wide array of availabledatabase application servers, including, but not limited to, IBM LotusNotes servers, Oracle servers, etc.

The web servers incorporated into the invention may be any suitableplatform, including, but not limited to, IBM's Web Sphere product,Apache Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) servers, secure HTTPservers (“HTTPS”), and the like. The computer network may include theInternet, intranets, extranets, dedicated networks such as local areanetworks (“LAN”) and wide area networks (“WAN”), wireless data networks,and/or any other suitable computer and data communications network.

Communications means between database application servers, computernetwork consoles, and web servers may include any suitable datacommunications protocols and media including, but not limited to,dial-up modems over telephone lines, wireless data transceivers, cablemodems, Digital Subscriber Lines (“DSL”), and dedicated datacommunication lines.

It will be recognized by those skilled in the art that certaincombinations and integrations of the features presented herein may bemade without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.Further, it will be recognized that many of the architectural detailsdisclosed herein are disclosed under the inventor's preferred embodimentin order to enhance the robustness and reliability of the invention, butthese details may not be necessary to realize the fundamentalfunctionality of the invention.

Turning to FIG. 3, broker offerings (30) are comprised of one or moresets of materials (or services) associated with location and categorycode pairs. Typically, locations are related to geographical zones orregions such as countries, continents, or sales regions. Categories aretypically related to products, product lines, or services such ascomputers, hard drives, monitors, minutes of long-distance, megabytes oftransmission or other types of services and products. As such, anoffering (30) which is presented to a broker contains only materials orservices which are being made available to that broker for which thelocation and category code meet his broker profile. And, the offeringmay include materials for a combination of brokers. For example as shownin FIG. 3, an offering to a European broker may be comprised of a firstmaterial code pair such as location=Europe, and category=power supply,(31). It may also include additional materials with associated locationand category pairs, such as location=Europe andcategory=computer_monitor, and location=Germany andcategory=Deutsche_AIX_operating system.

An enhanced broker profile matrix (40) according to the presentinvention is disclosed in FIG. 4. For each broker, a broker profilematrix is defined, which is a two-dimensional table for location andcategory in this preferred embodiment. It will be recognized, however,by those skilled in the art that such a broker profile matrix may bemultidimensional beyond the two-dimensional example shown, or it may besingle dimensional.

In this example of FIG. 4, the locations are indexed against theplurality of categories, and then a logical enabler, such as a Booleanflag, is recorded for each combination of location and category pairs. Aprofile matrix defines the “entitlement” for a particular broker.Available products or services which match the location-categoryparameter pairs in a broker's entitlement profile matrix are madeavailable to that broker, and products and services which do not meetthe parameters of the profile matrix are not presented for bidding tothat broker. A special flag value, shown here as “YR”, indicates thatthe broker or bidder is entitled to receive offering information forthis location-category pair, but that the broker or bidder is notentitled to bid on those items (e.g. “Yes, Read Only”). A simple flag of“Y” indicates full privileges for viewing and bidding on products in theindicated location-category pair, and a flag of “N” indicates noprivilege to see or bid on items in the indicated location-categorypair.

For example in FIG. 4, the completed profile matrix for a hypotheticalbroker defines that the broker is entitled to receive offeringsinformation but not to bid for category_1 products in location_1 andlocation_3, and for category_2 products only in location_1, and forcategory_Y products only in location_1. The hypothetical broker of thisexample is not authorized or entitled to receive offerings for any otherlocation-category parameter pair.

Using this method, a currently-entitled bidder or broker can be definedas a “guest” for additional location-category pairs if the bidder orbroker is considering executing an amended RMA to include those items,as well as allowing for guests who do not currently have any entitledlocation category pairs. In other words, a current bidder or broker maybe enabled to see information about certain offers and bid on thoseoffers having a “Y” for those offers in his profile, while he may berestricted to viewing information about other offers having a “YR” forthose other offers in his profile.

Turning to FIG. 5 in which the general architecture of the system of theinvention is shown, the Interactive Offer Server (“IOS”) (51) isassociated with an offering database (52). The offering system (50) isincluded in the larger architecture (59) which includes the brokers'consoles (58), the administrator console (56), and the traders' consoles(54). All consoles and the interactive offering server may communicateeither as an integrated package within one computer system, or asseparate computer systems integrated and communicating over a computernetwork such as the internet.

In the general architecture of FIG. 5, the manufacturer or serviceprovider's goods availability list (55) is received by the traderconsoles (54). The trader then creates proposed offerings by filteringthe availability list against the broker profile matrices (40) for hisbroker(s). Those proposed offerings are input into the offering database (52), which are then retrieved by the administrator using hisadministrator console (56).

The administrator then authorizes the proposed offerings and makes anote or change in the offering data base records to indicate suchauthorization.

During the open bidding process, the brokers may use their consoles,such as web browser personal computers (58), to retrieve theirofferings, and to submit bids via the IOS (51). When a broker makescontact with the interactive offering server, his identity is firstverified by an Authentication Server (57), according to the preferredembodiment.

In response to the broker's request for products or services offerings,the IOS queries the offering database (52) and presents the broker withofferings which contain items to which he or she is entitled. Anauthentication server (57) is included in the preferred embodiment so asto allow the interactive offering server to authenticate the brokerprior to presenting any offerings to the broker. As such, the generalarchitecture (59) as shown in FIG. 5 provides each broker with one ormore offerings which have been authorized and which have been filteredonly to show available materials or services on which he is entitled tobid or view.

Turning to FIG. 6, the detailed organization of the system according tothe preferred embodiment is shown. According to the preferredembodiment, a sales preparation system (60) comprising an IBM LotusNotes system provides available materials list to the traders via theirtrader consoles (61), which are networked personal computers alsorunning Lotus Notes applications. These available materials lists couldalternatively be simple text file lists or spreadsheets, as well as database records. Alternatively, the trader consoles (61) may be dedicatedcomputer consoles, web browser computers, or other appropriate computeruser interface devices such as wireless web browsers.

The trader console then filters the available materials list for eachenhanced broker profile or entitlement schema E′ (63) for the trader'sbrokers, and prepares proposed broker offerings to be stored in the IOSproduction server (62). The enhanced entitlement profile or brokerprofile E′ (63) is also available to the IOS production server (62) forverification of the trader's proposed offerings.

An administrator may use an administrator's console (64) to query thedatabase of the IOS production server (62) to retrieve and review atrader's proposed offerings. He may authorize all or some of theproposed offerings, and place those authorized offerings in the IOSdatabase for replication to the IOS staging server (65).

Posting of the authorized offerings to the IOS staging server (65) ispreferably done by a Lotus Notes replicator function. As both the IOSproduction server (62) and staging server (65) are based on IBM LotusNotes systems in the preferred embodiment, the replicator is a naturalfunction of Lotus Notes which is easily incorporated and maintained. AnIBM Lotus Enterprise Integrator (“LEI”), formerly known as “Notes Pump”,then prepares a DB2 database file (66) from the IOS staging server (65).

Further according to the preferred embodiment, all of these previouslydescribed systems and components and processes are executed and placedbehind a protective data “fire wall” (603) for system security. Theposted available offerings for the guest brokers are replicated toanother database outside the firewall, preferably in a DB2 format (67)again. This “outside” database is available for query by at least oneapplication server (68).

Also according to the preferred embodiment, a clustered pair ofapplication servers (68) are used to query the outside database (67) foravailable offerings for brokers. The application servers are providedrequests from the brokers via network dispatchers (69). The networkdispatchers (69) receive broker requests for offerings by a proxy server(600). Thus, the guest brokers may use their broker consoles (602), suchas web browser personal computers or wireless web browsers, to query theoutside database (67) via a computer network (601) such as the Internet.

The network dispatchers provide balanced loading to the applicationservers (68), and they provide for redirection of requests to one of theapplication servers should the other application server experience afailure.

According to the preferred embodiment, the application servers (68) areweb server hardware platforms, such as IBM RS6000 computers running theIBM AIX operating system, accompanied by the IBM WebSphere product. Javaservlets are used to interact with the broker console computers (602),which could be alternately realized in such technology as Microsoft'sActive Server Pages or Java server pages.

According to the preferred embodiment, the application servers areprovided with communications capability to an authentication server (57)which may include lists of brokers and passwords against which brokerlog-in attempts may be validated.

Thus, the system and methods disclosed including the preferredembodiment provide a capability to prepare offerings for guest brokersfrom traders such that the offerings contain only the informationnecessary to convey a sample offering to a broker for product or servicefor which he is entitled to view but not bid. The preferred embodimentprovides a robust and secure architecture to insure that productofferings are made available only to entitled brokers, and that systemfailure will not result in loss of availability of offering and biddingcollection services.

Turning to FIG. 7, the logical flow of the process followed by a brokerand a system is shown. According to the preferred embodiment, the brokerfirst logs on to the system (70) followed by an authentication of hislog on (71). If this authentication fails, he may request a broker ID(72) which will be established for him.

If his authentication passes, then a check for his entitlements (73) maybe made. If he is not currently entitled to receive any offerings, hemay request an entitlement (74), according to the preferred embodiment.

Otherwise, the IOS database is queried for offerings for materials orservices to which the broker is entitled (75). Times available for openbidding, reserved prices, and other related general parameters toofferings (76) may be consulted prior to presenting offerings to abroker in order to avoid presenting offerings which are already expiredor closed. Each offering provided to the broker may include a pluralityof materials, each material being characterized by a location-categoryparameter pair which matches a location-category definition in thebroker's profile matrix.

Then, for all items to which the broker is entitled to view and bid(700), the entitled offerings are displayed (77) to the broker so thathe may review and respond to the offerings. Those bids are thencollected (78) and stored for later review by the trader using thetrader console, as described in the related application.

However, for those items to which he is entitled to view information butrestricted from bidding (700), the information (or a subset of theinformation) regarding the items will be displayed (79) with all biddingactions disabled or with no bidding actions given.

For example, in the preferred embodiment, a web page including a placebid button or icon is sent to the bidder including the information aboutthe products to which he is entitled to bid normally (77). If the bidderdecides to place a bid, he may click on the bid button, which willprovide him with a bid form to complete with bid price and quantity.However, for items which a bidder is only allowed to read as a guest,the bid button is either disabled (“grayed out”) and provided with aninformational message such as “Sorry, you are not allowed to bid on thisitem at this time”, or the bid button is removed from the web page (79)entirely.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art and from the foregoingdescription that various modifications and changes may be made in thepreferred embodiment of the present invention without departing from itsspirit and scope. It is intended that this description is for purposesof illustration only and should not be construed in a limiting sense.The scope of this invention should be defined by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for providing read-only guest user access in a web based auction comprising the steps of: in a first tier of an offering and bidding process provided to users by an interactive offer server computer, the interactive offer server computer notifying one or more traders via one or more trader console computers of available products, services, or both products and services from an offering party through the interactive offer server computer; the interactive offer server computer in a second tier of the said offering and bidding process, communicating offerings from the one or more trader console computers to one or more broker parties via one or more broker console computers to resell the available products, services, or both products and services, wherein each of the one or more brokers are associated with a trader party; the interactive offer server computer in a third tier of the offering and bidding process, receiving from one or more of the one or more broker parties via the one or more broker console computers bids to purchase the available products, services, or both products and services through the trader; the interactive offer server computer accessing a reseller master agreement in a computer-readable record for each of the one or more broker parties entitling a subset of the available said products, services or both products and services on which each of the one or more broker parties are allowed to bid, the subset being authorized for subsequent resale by each of the one or more broker parties to one or more end users, the interactive offer server computer preparing and presenting one or more entitled offerings to a guest user of the offering and bidding process according to a guest profile, wherein the presenting of offerings comprising presenting to the guest user only the one or more entitled offerings for which the guest user is allowed to view information according to the guest profile and restricting display to the guest user of offerings to which the guest user is not entitled.
 2. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the guest profile comprises one or more item category parameters.
 3. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the guest profile comprises one or more guest location parameters.
 4. The method as set forth in claim 2 wherein the step of preparing the one or more entitled offerings comprises removing one or more items from an available items list which are unmatched by at least one or more category parameters within the guest profile to produce a minimized list of items for which the guest is entitled to receive offerings.
 5. The method as set forth in claim 3 wherein the step of preparing the one or more entitled offerings comprises removing items from an available items list which are unmatched by at least one or more guest location parameters produce a minimized list of items for which the guest is entitled to receive offerings.
 6. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the step of presenting comprises displaying in a web browser user interface.
 7. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising the step of the interactive offer server computer disabling and restricting bid attempts from the guest user for items which are indicated as read-only in the guest profile.
 8. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising the step of the interactive offer server computer enabling bid attempts from the guest user for items which are indicated as entitled in the guest profile. 